Lord Leighton, the President of the Royal Academy, died on
Saturday at the age of sixty-five,—a loss to the country which is not to be repaired. He belonged to a type of which the mould seems to be broken. Artist, orator, courtier, man of the world, who in each capacity attained to. all but the first rank, Lord Leighton was more like an Italian of the Renaissance than an Englishman of to-day; and yet he was thoroughly an Englishman too. His best work was instinct with the Italian love of beauty, fall of colour and light and graceful form ; and it is said that hi Italy, where he was most at home, and spoke all dialects of the Peninsula, he was far better known to the true people than in England. It was characteristic of him that perhaps the best picture he ever painted was one of himself, —the being whom he best understood, and, though without selfishness, rejoiced in. The favourite of Princes as of artists, a man c.f business capacity who yet was always genial, an orator of finish rather than of eloquence, Lord Leighton was a perfect President, and one whom it will be impossible adequately to replace. No successor to him has yet been indicated, for it is believed that the artist whose name at once rises to the lip, Sir John Millais, has no longer the health to perform duties which in their multifariousness, as well as their weight, are rather unusually exacting.
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